


Yesterday, By The Sea

by fwooshy



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Hogwarts Eighth Year, M/M, Magical House, Photographs, Post-War, Slow Burn, Summer
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-11
Updated: 2020-09-11
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:54:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26398213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fwooshy/pseuds/fwooshy
Summary: The photo came out slightly blurred - his mother had been smiling too hard to hold the camera steady - but Draco found he preferred it this way. He liked the way he looked when he couldn’t be seen too clearly.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Comments: 5
Kudos: 26





	Yesterday, By The Sea

In the summer after it all ended, Draco and his mother took up residence at a cottage on the coast. The cottage came into their hands by way of his mother’s late sister Bellatrix Lestrange. Bellatrix’s late husband had deeded the cottage to her twenty-some years ago in anticipation of their first child. But she had lost the babe, and the cottage was forgotten in their heartache.

Draco resisted when his mother initially suggested the Lestrange cottage. He wanted to move to an anonymous flat in London, like Pansy had, where it’d be easier for them to start over. But Narcissa insisted, wanting to mourn the sister of her girlhood more than she wanted to start over, and who was Draco, to deny his mother in her grief?

It was midsummer but the sea wind still blew strong enough to rattle the trees. Draco took the overgrown brick path that stretched from the back of the cottage to the bluff. He stopped under a stately cypress to admire the grand picnic table that rested in its shade. He ran his fingers along the grain the same way he did when he had first found it, following the knots and the whorls of the single piece of redwood that it had been crafted from. On the underside, his fingers found the grooves of a small heart-encircled inscription: for Bella, now and forever.

Draco sat at one end of the table and imagined Bellatrix and Rodolphus and their unborn child gathered at the other, his own parents laughing and drinking iced tea across from them, his grandmother approaching from the cottage with a tray of frosted cakes.

Rodolphus had named the cottage Cornsilk-by-the-Sea, because each sunrise rose from the sea and threaded across the cottage bright as cornsilk. Draco was starting to believe that Rodolphus had perhaps had a romantic soul, before he died a cruel man.

***

Draco’s trial date came by the same owl as his Hogwarts supplies list. He took both to the kitchen, where his mother sat upright at the round table and stared blankly at the wallpaper. The wallpaper was yellow, with pleasing lemon and orange vines.

He fixed her a cup of tea first.

Their trial date was set for the 27th of the month, but there were further requests to appear on the 12th, the 18th, the 24th, and the 26th, to testify for other trials, with promises of a lessened sentence with full cooperation.

He handed her the notice. “What shall we do?”

“We shall do all they require,” Narcissa said, sliding the letter onto the crochet tablecloth without reading it.

“Mother,” Draco hesitated, concerned.

Draco’s mother had always loved tuning the delicate gears of politics. They’d spend each past summer scheming for his next term, compiling excessively specific to-do lists with line items like “Strike up a conversation with Astoria Greengrass between Potions and Arithmancy; she’ll be walking up the same way from Transfigurations,” and “Professor Vector has drinks with a handsome woman at the Three Broomsticks every Wednesday; she is particularly amicable the following day, if you should require a favor”. Draco would line the bottom of his school trunk with these lists and fish them out whenever he missed her, which was more often than he’d like to admit

So it was rather unlike his mother to not care.

“Harry Potter adores sincerity,” Narcissa said after a while. She interlaced her thin fingers together on top of the tablecloth, and turned her attention fully to Draco for the first time since he entered. “I believe he will forgive you, as long as you are sincere in your apologies. Can you be sincere, Draco?”

“I-” Draco’s voice cracked. He didn’t need to try to be sincere. He was always sincere. And he was sorry. And grateful. And sorry, so sorry - Merlin, he needed time to think this through, if he let this incoherent babble out at the trial, no one would think he was sincere at all.

“We will practice,” his mother assured him firmly. And then her eyes shifted back to the walls.

Draco took his letter from Hogwarts and walked through the rosemary-patterned hallways back to his room where he placed it carefully, still sealed, on the top of his desk. On his way back out he stopped at the wood-framed photos lining the walls like he always did. His gaze slid to a photo of a young, frizzy-haired Bellatrix loudly recounting a story while a shy Rodolphus gazed at her adoringly. Next to them, three sisters - his mother among them - danced around a radio in hot pink leopard print mini skirts, their hair pulled back in messy braids. Below, a pack of cigarettes laid next to a Muggle lighter on a brightly striped beach towel, palm trees in the distance. Like snapshots of the sweetness of a rebellious youth, frozen in time. Draco wondered when they’d soured into the dour portraits that hung haughtily in Malfoy Manor.

***

On the morning of the first testimony on the 12th, Draco stumbled onto the court steps and sicked up. There was a flash; Rita Skeeter had been expecting him.

It couldn’t have been helped. The cottage wasn’t connected to the Floo network, and the Ministry hadn’t sent them a Portkey, so his mother had Side-Alonged him through four Apparition points to make their morning appointment.

Draco had always had a weak stomach.

“Becoming ill is the utmost act of sincerity,” his mother murmured encouragingly to him as he steadied himself against her. She herself stood statuesque as she Vanished his puke with a wordless flick of her wand. It was times like this that Draco thought himself unworthy of his mother.

They sat in the court waiting room for three hours before Prudence Proudfoot called them in.

“We don’t actually need you today. Rookwood already confessed to everything yesterday,” she said dismissively, looking down at the file and not at them.

Draco’s stomach flipped at the injustice. His mother had strained herself over five Apparitions and four hours in the waiting room for no reason. He opened his mouth to protest, but instead his mother said, “Augustus Rookwood’s daughter-in-law, Clodia Rookwood, was also complicit. She had been a Snatcher.”

Proudfoot glanced up at them, paying attention now, quill scribbling furiously.

Draco spoke as though cued. “I can confirm that I saw her at the Manor on more than one occasion.”

Proudfoot leaned forward on the table with a cruel sneer, looking extra pleased that she had another Death Eater to chase down and humiliate. “Anyone else? More friends to betray?”

Draco wasn’t friends with the Rookwoods. He hadn’t been friends with any of the Death Eaters actually, he’d just been family.

He kept his mouth shut.

Fifteen minutes later, they were out and traveling back to their cottage with their first written record of cooperation. So it was all worth it, Narcissa said, and Draco believed her until Narcissa nearly collapsed on the walk back to cottage. 

***

When he came into the kitchen the next morning for breakfast, his mother was reading the Daily Prophet.

“I thought you vowed never to read that rag again,” Draco said, aching a brow.

“That was before you made the front page,” she said sweetly, handing him the paper. Draco took it and watched himself regurgitating breakfast on the court steps loop again and again. He hated it, of course.

“You look very sincere,” his mother complemented, “I’m going to cut it out and frame it.”

“Please don’t,” Draco said weakly, but he warmed at his mother’s mischievous smirk. It’d been a cold summer without her. He wanted to take a photo of this moment and remember it forever, before he lost her again.

He climbed up to the attic later, determined to find a camera.

***

Their second appointment came six days later. Draco had written to the Ministry and implored that they send them a Portkey, please, anything to ease the pain of travel. But every day his letter was returned with the perfunctory letterhead apology: no favoritism could be afforded to them at this time, sincerest apologies, The Office of the Minister of Magic.

So that morning they arrived by Apparition again. Draco stumbled on the marble steps, and sicked up under the flash of Rita Skeeter’s camera. Except this time when he was scrambling to regain his balance, someone reached out to steady him, and when he looked up, he saw it had been Harry Potter.

He recoiled instinctively, horrified, and winced under the brightness of another flash.

“Malfoy,” Harry acknowledged, his mouth a thin, polite line.

Draco intended to hiss at him, to tell him to go away, but then he remembered his mother standing behind him.

“Good morning, Mister Potter,” his mother said like a cool breeze.

Harry’s green eyes snapped to her, as though he hadn’t seen her there.

“Mrs. Malfoy. Good morning. Err - actually, I wanted to talk to you about something. In private. If you’ve time.” He shot an apologetic look at Draco.

“I have time,” Narcissa said. “Will you be alright alone, Draco?”

Draco nodded dumbly. What business did Potter have to do with his mother? “I’ll go along to the waiting room and check us in, then,” he said distractedly, lurching up the rest of the steps.

“Hey, wait - Draco -” he heard Harry call behind him.

Draco didn’t wait.

***

“Number 208,” the teller announced.

Draco glanced around nervously before jerkily walking up to the counter. His mother hadn’t shown up yet. Missing for an appointment with the Wizengamot… Draco wondered what the punishment for that would be. Damn Potter. Always screwing things up for his family; why hadn’t his mother just declined? She knew they had an appointment, she knew -

He shuffled his feet in front of the teller, waiting for her to ask him about Narcissa. What would he even say to that? She was kidnapped by Harry Potter? He could imagine the sneer on the teller’s face already. Harry Potter, associated with Death Eater scum? Impossible!

But the teller asked no questions. Proudfoot took one carnivorous look at Draco alone at the counter and dragged him back to the windowless room with the metal table and metal chairs.

“Victor Crabbe,” Proudfoot announced, slapping the file on the table and propping her steel-toed boots up on the table with a clang.

Draco winced.

“You were close with his son. Ah, apologies, I meant - late son,” she smirked.

Draco wasn’t ready for this. He wanted - his face flamed up in humiliation - he wanted his mother.

“Yes,” he answered, his voice trembling, looking down at the metal grain of the table.

“So?” her lips curled expectantly.

“I - I saw them at the Manor. Although… I’m not clear if he had been torturing anyone… I think mostly he walked around - I imagine -”

“You think? You imagine?” Proudfoot snarled. Draco snapped his head up in alarm. Her teeth were bared. She looked ready to rip his throat out.

“I-”, Draco stammered.

“You expect me to believe that Victor Crabbe, confirmed Death Eater, would be at You-Know-Who’s quarters, just - walking around innocently, maybe pissing on the flowerbeds when the screams for mercy coming from the dungeons got to be too much? Do you take me for an idiot? I don’t take lightly to being lied to!” she screamed, swinging her feet back down and slammed both fists on the table, rising to lean over the table toward Draco. Draco felt his skin try to crawl inside of him.

The door pushed open. Harry walked in, quickly taking in the scene and grimacing when his eyes met Draco’s terrified ones. Draco felt a flush come over him again; why did he always cower in front of Potter? It was like Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom all over again; there weren’t any windows either. It really wasn’t fair - 

Then his mother walked in, all elegant five foot ten inches of her, and Draco slumped back down on his chair in relief.

“What’s going on in here, Prudence?” Harry accused, crossing his arms.

“Nothing of concern, Potter,” Proudfoot said smoothly, “Just letting little Malfoy here get a taste of what happens when he lies.”

“Little… we’re the same age,” Harry muttered, before demanding - “Draco. What’s going on?”

Harry wanted him to respond. Draco’s mouth opened to do as commanded, but all that came out was “I - yes -”

“Thank you for escorting me here, Mister Potter,” his mother interjected, sweeping over to sit at the empty chair next to Draco, robes swishing so wide they nearly hid Draco from view. “I’m terribly sorry to keep you waiting, Miss Proudfoot, but now that I am here I assure you our full assistance in all you require.”

Proudfoot slid an oily smile toward Harry, who huffed and walked out without another word.

***

“I don’t like her. She reminds me of Fenrir Greyback,” Draco said when they were safely within the walls of their cottage again, the kitchen curtains drawn tight. Draco handed his mother a cup of chamomile and thought how out of place she looked in her black dress robes against the pale yellow wallpaper, the rosebud-embroidered curtains warmed by candlelight.

“She’s not important,” his mother replied, “Harry Potter is.”

“What did he want anyway?” he asked, not being able to keep the sulk from his words.

She was staring at the walls again, her back perfectly straight. But a few strands of hair had escaped their ties to cling to her cheek. “He was acting on behalf of your Aunt Andromeda. She was waiting for me at a dressing room in the back of Madam Malkin’s.”

“How… how did it go?” Draco asked. He wet his lips. If he didn’t know any better, he’d thought she looked vulnerable.

“Fine,” she said sharply, looking Draco straight in the eye. “We’ve arranged for her to visit the day after tomorrow.”

“Here?” Draco said uneasily. “Aunt Bella…” Draco trailed off. Bellatrix had murdered Andromeda’s only child.

“I wondered too,” his mother said softly, staring off at the wall as though lost in thought again, “But perhaps it’s easier to forgive the dead than the living.”

Draco had never met his Aunt Andromeda, but that night he stopped by the hallway of photos and found her beaming under a tree, shoulder-to-shoulder with his mother, the Great Lake a glittering blur in the background, and thought she must’ve been kind.

***

When Draco went looking in the attic, he found not only a camera but also a dark room, and several rolls of carefully preserved film. Draco gathered all the pieces together on the floor and crouched down, trying to make sense of the ensemble with little success.

He decided to take a break for lunch.

His mother was in the kitchen again, sitting at the round table as she always did.

“Lunch?” Draco asked, rummaging through the fridge. The cottage was furnished with an almost entirely Muggle kitchen. Draco had tripped over it their first few days, burning most of their food and accidentally letting all the ice melt in the freezer, but by now Draco had grown rather fond of the whole setup. It made living without a wand possible. That wasn’t to say Draco couldn’t perform magic - he knew a good number of spells wandlessly - but he still lacked the finesse to toast a slice of bread as well as a Muggle toaster set to 3.

“Please,” his mother murmured over the paper.

Draco pulled out a slab of cheese and started making sandwiches. “Anything good today?”

“You made the front page again,” his mother said nonchalantly. She sent the front page flying over to him. He slammed down the knife and caught it just before it slapped him in the face.

“Merlin’s beard, Mother!” Draco complained. His scowl deepened as he took in the front page. There he was again on the Wizengamot steps, his vomit displayed prominently in the foreground as he recoiled from Potter’s helpful hand on repeat.

“I - I shouldn’t have - I should have been more receptive to Potter’s help,” Draco said, embarrassed. 

“Nonsense. Your recoil was very sincere.” His mother recalled the front page, cut out the photo with a wordless charm, and then resumed staring at the wallpaper.

Draco couldn’t tell if his mother was making fun of him or not. He didn’t want to take any chances on the good mood though, so he assumed she was and kept on slicing the ham. When he finished fixing the sandwiches, he dropped a plate at her table and took the other with him to the library.

The library was no bigger than a bedroom, but it was in the shape of a hexagon, and against each wall of the hexagon leaned a bookshelf that towered to the ceiling. The ceiling was charmed to reveal a grey, cloudy sky above; the floor, a soft, carpeted meadow. Draco breathed in the cool breeze that flowed through the room by magic and enjoyed the feeling of walking through a dream, before focusing on his goal. He had come to find books on photography. 

Rodolphus had evidently been an amateur enthusiast of photography, because there were three entire shelves dedicated to it. Draco took down several before finding one that explained the technical parts of a camera similar to the one he had found in the attic. He spent the afternoon reading the entirety of the book and couldn’t help be impressed by the cleverness of the Muggle who wrote it. If only Muggles had magic, Draco thought fleetingly, imagine the things they could invent then.

By late afternoon Draco felt confident enough to start playing with the parts in the attic. He got as far as putting it all together, but when he pressed the shutter nothing happened. So he took it apart all over again, and tried again. After some time he realized that the shutter mechanism had come apart because of a loose screw, and that he needed to tighten such a screw, but the screw was truly so tiny, and hard to grip. Another book had mentioned some sort of device (screwdriver?) that could help him twist in the screw, so he set about the attic to find it, but soon he realized he couldn’t see well enough to find anything, because it was eight, and the sun had gone down.

Draco hurried down the stairs. He had forgotten about dinner, but when he entered the kitchen, Narcissa didn’t seem upset. She was still staring at the wall. Draco turned on the lights and heated the water for pasta. He still had sauce saved from the previous night, so he reheated that on the stove too. When it was done, he brought both bowls to the kitchen table and the two of them ate it together without thinking. Draco was downstairs for all of twenty minutes before he returned to the attic to continue his search.

The first photo he took was of his thumb.

The photo developed instantly, spitting out of the front of the camera. It was all white at first, which the book had said was normal. So Draco had watched it turn from snowstorm white to the kind-of-pinkish-white of his thumb with all the hope in his heart.

The second photo he took was of his mother the next morning, sitting at the round table in the kitchen in a deep emerald robe that brought out the shadows in the wallpaper behind her. 

They watched the colors come in together, watched photo-Narcissa turn her head to them and wink.

“I’ve forgotten how lovely photographs can be,” his mother said slightly breathlessly. And then she had playfully wrestled the camera from Draco’s grasp to take a photo of him.

The photo came out slightly blurred - his mother had been smiling too hard to hold the camera steady - but Draco found he preferred it this way. He liked the way he looked when he couldn’t be seen too clearly.

***

After breakfast, Draco took the path up from the front of the cottage so he could avoid the arrival of his Aunt Andromeda. The path ended on the edge of a Muggle road, the kind that Muggle cars often shot down faster than a Firebolt, and this road was no exception. Draco sat down with his camera and watched the cars speed by. They acted almost like beasts, he thought, with each their own personality. There were the loud, flashy ones that drove too fast for no reason - the Gryffindors, of course. Then there were the cheery, sturdy ones that could hold a whole family of humans and crups that were the splitting image of Hufflepuffs. The grey, practical-looking ones with EV etched in sensible text, Draco attributed to the Ravenclaws, while making a mental note to look up what “EV” stood for later. He was in the middle of assigning cars to Slytherin - he had saved Slytherin for last, of course, Slytherin being the most nuanced House - when a boxy cherry red car with no top (very impractical, practically screaming Gryffindor) rolled in front of him, and stopped.

It was Harry Potter, of course.

Next to Harry sat a mousy-haired woman that looked to be Draco’s mother’s age. A baby was strapped in a carseat in the back.

This woman was undoubtedly Draco’s Aunt Andromeda. He wanted to laugh at how spectacularly his plans to hide had backfired. His Aunt Andromeda - arriving by car! Was that what happened when one married a Muggleborn?

Draco shook off his shock and stood up to open the door for her. “Aunt Andromeda,” he greeted politely, “I’m Draco Malfoy, your nephew.”

She took his arms warmly in her hands. “So happy to finally meet you.”

“Sorry we’re so late,” Harry said, getting out of the car and unbuckling the baby from his seat.

“No problem,” Draco said distractedly.

Then the baby’s hair turned teal, and Draco nearly fell down.

“This cottage is impossible to get to. Is that why you sick up every time you show up to court?” Harry asked. The baby gurgled happily against Harry’s chest.

Draco didn’t know what to say. He was too distracted by Potter - Potter’s car - Potter’s car with a color-changing baby in the backseat.

He didn’t know why he did it. Maybe it was because he thought that nobody would otherwise believe that this had happened. Maybe it was because he wanted to remember that it had happened himself. But he held up his camera and took a photo - his aunt, the cherry red convertible, Harry with the baby in the back. He didn’t have to wait for it to finish developing to know that it would be a lovely photo.

If Harry hadn’t been holding the baby he would have punched Draco.

“Shit,” Draco murmured. Draco had forgotten that Harry hated cameras. Draco turned around and stiffly walked down the road to the cottage to hide in the attic.

***

Draco caught Harry on his way to the bathroom. They’d been with Draco’s mother for several hours now, and from what he could overhear they weren’t talking much but there wasn’t any arguing either.

“Here,” Draco said, shoving the photo into Harry’s hands. “You keep it. I don’t know why I took it. I just thought it would be nice - I wasn’t going to sell it, I swear.”

Harry took the photo.

“It’s lovely,” Harry said after a while, staring at the photo. “Teddy’s hair color even changes mid-loop. I didn’t know photos could do that.”

“Err - yes,” Draco said. His eyes were still trained on Harry. Harry’s face had softened some since arriving, but he still shifted from one feet to another as though to keep them ready to bolt.

“Did you take these too?” Harry pointed to the photos on the wall.

“Oh, no - those are - old. Very old. Previous occupants,” Draco said nervously. He wanted to pull Harry out of the room. He didn’t want Harry to see photos of a woman who single handedly murdered so many of Harry’s closest loved ones.

A frame flew from the wall and shattered on the floor. Draco unconsciously backed up against the wall.

And then Harry’s shoulders dropped.

“Sorry. Andromeda told me it was the Lestrange Cottage. I knew what I was getting into. I wanted to - So - please don’t worry her. I can handle it.”

Harry looked like he was going to be sick. But he also had that determined look on his face that Draco had seen back at school, the one that always got Potter what he wanted, so Draco also knew he could handle it. “I believe you,” he said.

Harry turned his bright gaze to Draco briefly before looking away to the mess on the floor.

“Aren’t you going to Reparo that?” Harry snapped.

Draco winced. “Haven’t a wand, sorry. Can you -”

“You haven’t a wand?”

“Yes, well,” Draco gulped, “You still have it. Unless you’ve misplaced it?”

Shame and realization dawned on Harry’s face. He repaired the frame and reset it on the wall with one wandless wave of his hand. And then he said gruffly, “I’ll get it to you tomorrow.”

Harry was looking at the photos on the wall again. “I know it’s - her - in these photos, but at the same time I feel like I’m looking at a different person. You know what I mean? It feels wrong to hate someone who looks so uncomplicatedly happy in these photos. Like,” he pointed at a photo of a preteen Aunt Bella cradling a kneazle like a baby in her arms, “How can this child grow up to be a murderer?”

Draco thought of Aunt Bella who always snuck him chocolates as a child, the same Aunt Bella who had once Cruciatus’d him when she had found doubts about the Dark Lord in his mind. He knew exactly what he meant.

She had Cruciatus’d him. And then she had taught him Occlumency, so that no one else, not even the Dark Lord, could ever uncover his doubts. 

“This whole cottage doesn’t make sense to me,” Draco admitted, “There’s no Floo. Most of the appliances are Muggle. Even most of the furniture seems Muggle; or at least, handmade. Not a spark of Magic holding them together. I don’t think even Muggleborn homes are this devoid of Magic. And that’s just the stuff that’s still out. There’s boxes of magicless stuff stored away in the attic. I hadn’t had the time to look through all of it yet.”

“Really?” Harry looked around curiously. “Not a single magical room. I haven’t been in one of those in ages.”

“None - well, except the library.” The library was exceptionally magical.

“Can you take me there?”

Draco could, of course.

Harry loved the library. But he loved the attic with its boxes of Muggle things even more.

They left in the evening. Draco and his mother walked with them to the road. As they waved the red convertible goodbye, his mother said, “Your father used to have the same car in green. We drove it all the way to Italy.”

***

Draco didn’t believe her, of course.

His father, steadfast upholder of blood purity, owning a Muggle car?

“We’re due for a visit to your father,” his mother said when they got back to the cottage.

Draco set the light pink kettle over the gas range. He fiddled with the knobs, twisting twice before the flame caught, marveling for a moment at the Muggle invention. The only way it’d be better was if it could automatically adjust the flame so the kettle was always at the perfect temperature. Maybe, with a tempering charm...

He wasn’t ready to face his father.

***

Draco was back at the side of the road again the next day, sorting cars into Slytherin. He considered an endlessly curvy compact silver convertible - because, okay, he rather liked the look - before conceding that opulence was more Malfoy than Slytherin, and turned his eye on a car that looked like an awkward, armored box on wheels. Self-preservation was absolutely Slytherin, but did it have to look so gauche?

Draco wasn’t entirely surprised when Harry rolled up then in his boxy red convertible, since he had promised to come to return Draco’s wand. But then Harry stuck his head out over the door and said, “Wanna go for a drive?”

Draco did, because Draco had never been in a car before, and because his father had.

“It’s a Ford Mustang,” Harry said, patting the car as though it were his favorite broom. Which, in some way, it could have been.

“Sure,” Draco said.

“It’s Andromeda’s. She said it used to belong to her husband.”

“Oh, the Muggleborn,” Draco said, as though it explained everything. And in some ways it did. How else would Aunt Andromeda know anything about cars? A sentimental heart didn’t come prepackaged with Muggle Studies; she was still raised a Black.

Draco watched the hills blur around him. He checked the speedometer. It occurred to him that this was the fastest he’d ever gone, and yet he felt as though he wasn’t moving at all. It felt nothing like being on a broom.

“My mother said my father used to own the same car,” Draco said after a while.

Harry snorted.

Draco laughed too. “I don’t believe her either. My father, really? That bigoted model blood purist? He didn’t even let me eat Go-Gurts as a kid because they were Too Muggle.”

“Did you try them? Go-Gurts.”

“Yeah.” Draco made a face. “They’re awful. So artificial. But so convenient, in their tube shapes. Practically engineered for a kid’s fist. What, Potter - stop laughing - you’re telling me you never had Go-Gurts? Didn’t you grow up Muggle?”

“Not for me. My cousin got them though. Sometimes I licked the wrappers from the trash.”

Draco started to laugh, before he realized it wasn’t a joke. “Merlin, Potter -”

“Can you stop with the Potters? Andromeda’s got me trying first names for everyone, and it’s weirding me out that you’re still calling me Potter like we’re still back at school and the war’s still going on.”

“I - sure. Okay. Harry. Seriously, though? The trash? Were you not fed-”

Harry’s hands clenched over the wheel. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“No way, I just don’t believe it. Saint Dumbledore wouldn’t have just left you to starve. Weren’t you with your aunt? Even my Aunt Bella would never-”

“I SAID, I DON’T -,” Harry’s voice roared over the engine.

Draco stopped.

They drove in stiff silence. Draco leaned against the door and tried to stare out and enjoy the sea but all he could think of was how Harry had to lick Go-Gurt wrappers from the trash. In some ways it now all made sense. The way Harry seemed to inhale food as soon as it appeared before him. His scrawny arms that had, at eighteen, finally begun to fill out. The constantly hungry look in his eyes.

“Your father did own a car like this,” Harry mumbled after a while, taking them around an easy bend in the road. “I have proof.”

Draco took the olive branch eagerly. “No way,” he teased, shifting toward Harry.

“Have a look in the glove compartment,” Harry said, reaching over Draco to unlatch a compartment in front of him.

Draco reached in and found the car manual, a pack of old cigarettes, a lighter, and an old photograph. His father had his arms around a brown-haired man that Draco didn’t recognize but knew to be Ted Tonks. Behind them were twin convertibles - one in red, one in green.

Draco squinted closer at his dad. His dad had long hair still, but he looked around Draco’s age today. His mouth was split into a fierce grin that Draco had never seen before. When had this man turned into his father? And why? Why couldn’t he have stayed as happy as he had been, in this photo, standing proudly in front of a Muggle car, with his arms around a Muggleborn?

“I hate him,” Draco said.

Harry said nothing.

They stopped at a fish and chips shack on the beach. Harry took off his shoes and walked out to the waves so that they lapped at his feet. Draco hung back on the bench right before gravel turned into shore and took a photo of Harry walking back with sand sticking to his shins like glitter. Then they climbed into the car and Harry drove the rest of the way back barefoot.

On the way back Harry said, “I’ll come drive you and Narcissa to your next appointment.”

Draco said, “That’s not necessary, thank you,” even though he knew it was.

“Fine,” Harry scowled.

Draco hesitated then. His mother had said that accepting help is courageous because it’s hard to be vulnerable. And in some ways he knew that “no thank you” was his favorite shield. So he said, “Actually - if you don’t mind, my mother and I would greatly appreciate it.”

Draco was relieved when Harry smiled.

When Draco was stepping out, Harry said - “Oi, catch” - and threw Draco a box. It was his wand box.

***

Harry found Draco in the attic the next day. He explained, “Your mother let me in.”

Draco was in the middle of unpacking a box of photography equipment. He looked up from where he sat on the dusty floor and gaped.

“What’re you doing?” Harry asked, settling on the floor next to him at the same time Draco leaned away and said, “What do you want from me?” a tad too defensively.

“Relax, I’m just bored,” Harry said, his voice careful, “Not too much to do this summer. Everyone’s telling me I should take time for myself but I think they just want me to get out of their hair so they can move on and get over the war.”

“That can’t be true. They love you. You’re practically the hero of heroes,” Draco said. His hands were on his knees, his eyes still locked on Harry as though not truly believing that he was there.

Harry laughed sharply. “Well, it’s true. You can’t look at me without thinking of the war. I figure I’d relieve my friends of my specific brand of torture for the summer, at least.”

“So you’ve come to torture me instead.”

“Yeah. I mean. I can go if you want me to, but I figure with the trials you’ve a long way to go before you’re done pretending the war didn’t change anything.”

It wasn’t untrue, what Harry was saying. But it struck Draco as unexpectedly cruel, coming from Harry, who had saved even his childhood nemesis from a raging inferno of his own doing.

“You’ve changed,” Draco said, and then handed Harry the camera lens and a cleaning cloth. Cleaning it by magic would ruin it, Draco explained. It would make the photos move. That was his mistake with the Polaroid. If the photos didn’t move, the past would stay in the past. It wouldn’t try to mimic the living.

“I like it when they move,” Harry said.

“I like it when the dead stay dead,” Draco said, handing him the reassembled camera. “Want to take the first shot?”

Harry took it from him. He held the camera awkwardly to his eye and squinted, pressing down on the shutter. The flash went off and blinded Draco. Draco was sure it was going to be a bad photo.

“I’ve been thinking about what you said earlier,” Draco said later outside on the porch. They’d gone out to take more photos, but it’d been too dark so they’d given up and sat out in the night drinking lemonade and zapping moths out of the air. “I think you’ve got me all wrong. I want to move on more as much as anyone else. But what I’m moving on from has nothing to do with you.”

Harry didn’t say anything to that, so Draco continued, tucking his hair behind his ear. “I don’t think your friends want to move on from you either. I think it’s you who wants a reprise from them. But if I’m wrong that’s fine by me. I don’t care. You can come here all summer for whatever reason you want, I’ve plenty of boxes that need unpacking.”

Harry leaned back on his shoulders. Draco looked down at him with the warm summer night gently fluttering his bangs over the lighting bolt scar, his glasses just a little bit askew, and took a photo.

After Harry left, Draco went back inside to the living room where his mother had a photo album laid open before her on the coffee table. She looked up when he entered the room, and motioned for him to sit next to her on the velvet sofa.

“This album is from the summer we spent in San Francisco in the summer of my graduation from Hogwarts,” his mother said. Aunt Bella's unmoving face was pressed close to Aunt Dromeda’s as they turned to look back from the backseat of that red convertible. Andromeda’s eyes were closed under the bright sun, but her smile was blinding.

Draco wanted to ask how they could be so happy when all he was allowed at the same age was misery and isolation. Instead, he asked how they’d gotten the car all the way to California.

***

Harry found Draco in the kitchen the next morning while he was inserting two slices of bread in the toaster. It was seven in the morning, and the sun reflected bright off the ocean onto the kitchen countertops. Draco had to squint to see who it was. When he saw that it was Harry, he set a cup of earl grey in front of him.

“Andromeda’s with your mother. I was thinking we could go on a drive again,” Harry said, picking up his cup and holding it in his hands so that it steamed up his glasses.

“Sure,” Draco said, “Toast?”

“Please,” Harry said. He raised the cup to his mouth, but put it down without drinking. “I’m thinking we could also smoke skunk.”

“What’s that?” Draco asked. He placed a plate of toast in front of Harry, along with strawberry, raspberry, and blueberry jam jars, and a butter dish.

Harry took the butter knife and buttered his toast. “You smoke it, and it kind of muddles up your mind so that you’re all relaxed and - err, floaty.”

Draco opened the jar of strawberry jam and dipped a knife into it. “Sounds like Felix Felicis.”

“Yeah, sort of. The feeling of it anyway.” Harry paused to study the labels on the jams. “Which one should I do?”

Draco pushed the strawberry to him.

Harry took it and slathered the jam on absentmindedly as he continued talking. “Anyway it’s not as good as Felix-”

“You’ve taken Felix Felicis?”

“No - well, only once-”

“It would explain so much. You’ve always been so impossibly lucky.”

“Yeah, because I’m so lucky to have a megalomaniacal evil wizard target me my entire life up until this point. So lucky that my parents died and also my Godfather, and my house elf, and even my fucking owl-”

Draco choked mid-bite. He shouldn’t have; he should’ve thought before he spoke. “Alright, I’m sorry,” he interjected before Harry could continue down his road of grievances, “I’m wrong. I guess your luck just pays out when I’m watching,” he tried joking.

Harry looked down at his toast like he wanted to burn a hole in it. “I suppose you’ve your share of bad luck too,” he forced out, and even then it was more compassion than Draco deserved.

“Yes, I’ll allow that I couldn’t choose my father,” Draco said dryly, “But unfortunately the rest of my misfortune was of my own doing. Now will you continue, please?” 

Harry licked the little bit of jam he got on his index finger contemplatively before meeting Draco in the eye again. “Skunk is way better than felix because it’s way easier to get. It’s Muggle. Look, I’m not explaining it really well, but I’ve been smoking it with Andromeda and we’ve been really liking it, so I wanted you to try it too, since we’re trying Muggle things and all now.”

“Is that what we’re doing?” Draco asked a bit playfully, feeling a smirk crook up his mouth. “Alright, consider me thoroughly convinced. Let’s try it.”

Harry grinned. He picked up the toast and shoved it in his mouth without looking. Jam and crumbles crusted the corners of his mouth.

“You eat like a child,” Draco said, leaning over the counter and wiping Harry’s mouth with a napkin. 

***

Draco wrapped two roast beef sandwiches with cheese and tomato and cucumber slices in wax paper and packed it in his bag with two apples and two bottles of water and both of his Muggle cameras. He threw it all in the back of Harry’s convertible and slid in the passenger seat, where Harry was already toying with the knobs in the front. Eventually he twiddled the knobs exactly the right way, and the car began to play music that Draco couldn’t figure out if he liked because it was good or because it was new.

Although Draco had been in the car already once before, he was surprised to realize how much of it still felt new to him now that he wasn’t so nervous. He rested his arms on the open window and peered out the side of the car and counted all the boats out at sea until Harry took a turn more recklessly than he probably ought’ve, and Draco swung back into the car, gripping his hands on the worn leather seats.

They parked and walked out to the beach, where they laid out a large square beach towel and set up a striped umbrella that Harry kept in the trunk of his car. They sat down on the towel, Harry sitting cross-legged and Draco leaning back on his arms, his legs twisted out before him, and watched the waves bring in the tide until Harry reached in his pocket, took out a rolled blunt, and extended it toward Draco, who absolutely did not know what to do with it.

“Light the end, will you?” Harry prompted.

“I don’t have a lighter,” Draco said.

“Use your wand, then.”

Draco cast his gaze around him. “Won’t the Muggles see?”

Harry waved his free hand, and Draco felt the Notice-Me-Not charm sliding into place.

“I don’t have my wand on me,” Draco reddened, finally out of excuses.

“What? Is there something wrong with it?”

“I - no. I actually haven’t taken it out of its box yet. So I wouldn’t know.”

“Something wrong with your magic, then?” Harry leaned in, concerned.

“No. I just - with the house being so Muggle and all, I guess I’ve just haven’t really had the need.”

Harry was still looking at him curiously, so Draco felt compelled to continue justifying himself. “Muggle conveniences really aren’t too terrible. You don’t have to deal with candle wax, and the toaster is just, so incredibly consistent with toasting. And when you’re having a terrible day and looking in a mirror and just want to, you know, soak in the terrible, the mirror never tries to comfort you or anything. It just does its job, and ignores you, which is honestly exactly what I need right now.”

“I get that,” Harry said, “These days I just want to take a shower without my hot water getting all temperamental on me. Or go and make myself a sandwich without Kreacher - he’s my house elf - giving me attitude about how it’s his job to make my sandwiches. Or just like, walk through the front door without your awful Great Aunt Walburga shouting at me like I don’t belong in my own home.”

Harry was getting worked up again, so Draco was relieved to see him take a shaky breath before continuing on in a much steadier tone. “I was so thankful when Andromeda asked me to come and help look over Teddy with her. She has one of those nearly entirely Muggle homes too, and it’s honestly great. It’s exactly what I need. Most nights she knits while I hold Teddy and we watch the telly together.”

“I want to watch the telly,” Draco said with surprising gusto. He didn’t know what it was, but it must be pretty great if it was worth watching every night.

Harry laughed, and said, “Let’s start with this first, alright?” Then he wandlessly lit the blunt with such nonchalance that Draco had a moment of annoyance over the fuss about him lighting it when Harry could do it with so little inconvenience to himself.

By Draco’s second hit he was already forgetting why he’d been so worked up over the wand. Who cared if he carried his wand or not? Not him, not Harry, and certainly not his father who was faking his insanity in the Janus Thickey Ward at St Mungo’s.

Draco’s head was heavy so he settled down and laid it across Harry’s lap like he used to do with Pansy. From this angle he could see a thin scar that ran up from the neck to the slight stubble under Harry’s chin. He reached up and traced it softly, feeling his fingers burn under the touch.

Harry shifted under him then, gently pushing him off. “I’m hungry,” he said.

“Me too,” Draco said, folding up and reaching for his bag to pull out the sandwiches.

“They’re smashing,” Harry said as he chewed through one too fast, spilling tomato all over his chin.

“They are,” Draco agreed reverently. He took a few bites, swallowing faster than he should have. “This is the best thing I’ve ever put in my mouth,” he declared.

Harry dissolved into a peel of giggles so enticing that Draco had no choice but to join in as well.

“Have you had crisps before?” Harry asked after they’ve exhausted all the food.

“No. Don’t tell me.” Draco’s eyes widened comically, his voice clambering in increasing excitement. “Is it Muggle food? Can we try it?”

Harry laughed again. He stood up, and pulled Draco up with him. “I bet the snack shop will have them.”

They came back with five different flavors of crisps and also chocolate bars and soda and these little chocolate biscuits that Draco recognized from when his mother used to sneak them to him. Draco emptied the entire bag of treats on the beach towel and then had Harry pose like a beached merperson amongst them while he took blurry photo after photo, too distracted to check if the camera was in focus. Then they sat there and ate their hoard until Draco opened one too many melted chocolate bars and declared that it was too hot, so it must be time to go.

*** 

Draco woke the next morning to his mother shaking him awake. When he opened his eyes he smiled at her feeling still very heavy and soft from dreamless sleep and whispered “Mother”.

“Darling, you must get up. Harry Potter has arrived with his car to drive us to Wizengamot.” 

Draco lurched up. “Are we late to our appointment?”

“No, darling, you have another thirty minutes or so. He’s downstairs with a slice of toast. I imagine he’d gotten used to helping himself to breakfast here,” his mother said with the slightest smirk.

Draco smiled back, before frowning. “Mother. I wanted to ask you. Wouldn’t the court suspect us of favoritism if Harry Potter personally takes us to their steps? Then they will be less inclined to believe him if he chooses to speak favorably for us at trial…” He trailed off, thinking of the implications of their newfound closeness.

“Are we acting sincerely?” Narcissa asked.

Draco wasn’t sure. It was true that it was in his favor to be in Harry’s good graces. Harry was the Saviour of the Wizarding World, after all, and Draco’s want of favor is what spurned Harry from him in first year. But even then he had always sincerely wanted to understand him as a friend as much as he wanted to have him as a weapon.

“You’re much more sincere when you don’t think so hard,” Narcissa gently admonished.

“Alright, Mother,” Draco said in his most blasé voice. He didn’t have much time to think anyway, he had to get ready for court. So he swung his feet off the bed and made for his wardrobe.

***

Harry drove them home after, Narcissa making polite conversation in the front seat while Draco sat silently in the back and tried not to think. Proudfoot had pulled out the Goyle file today and Narcissa had given up Greg’s father with the same earnestness that she had given up Clodia Rookwood, except they weren’t the same, not to Draco anyway. Clodia’s son hadn’t spent the last seven years by Draco’s side. He would not feel the bitter weight of Draco’s betrayal.

Draco hadn’t seen Greg since the final battle, but he imagined their family did much the same as the Malfoys, and retreated back behind the doors of their ancestral home. He wondered what Greg was up to these days, if he still kept up with the Quidditch league or if he’d finally finished the massive tome that was Goder Escher Bach, now that he had the time. He wondered if Greg’s burns had healed yet, or if curse burns never healed only scarred.

He thought to write to Greg to ask, but fell off halfway through a mental composition. Maybe Harry had been right about his friends, about how they’d thought his presence too painful to bear these days. All Draco could think of when he thought of Greg was Vince.

Harry left his car on the roadside and followed them back into the cottage as though it was only natural for him to have a dinner of rice and curry, cooked the Muggle way, with Draco and Narcissa Malfoy.

“Bad day in court?” Harry asked later in the night when they were in the library. Draco had hoped to distract himself with the marvel of Muggle inventions by reading up on tellys (proper name television), but instead he stared unseeing at a single page in the encyclopedia.

Draco looked up to Harry where he lounged in a plush green armchair adorned with tiny dandelions and paged through a photography book, the pages illuminated by enchanted candlelight under the ceiling that was as grey as ever, the moon a soft glow behind thick clouds.

Yes,” Draco said, moved by the softness of the light into uncharacteristic openness, “It was the Goyle file today. We confirmed Greg’s father. ”

“So that’s Azkaban for him, I suppose,” Harry snorted with satisfaction. 

“I -” Draco said, feeling his prickliness come back with Harry’s unexpected abrasiveness (yet so characteristic; Draco really should have known better). “I suppose that’s all Death Eaters deserve,” Draco sneered, “While filthy rats like Proudfoot can go about with the same violence, as long as you’re on the right side you can get away with whatever you want -”

“Stop,” Harry said, “Before you say something you regret.”

Draco stopped.

“Gregory Goyle’s dad deserves whatever he’s going to get,” Harry said, very pragmatic. “He murdered three Muggles. You watched him torture them at Malfoy Manor.”

“I know,” Draco mumbled, his stomach twisting in memory.

“You know?”

“Yes. What he did was absolutely wrong. He deserves punishment. But he doesn’t deserve Azkaban. My father-”

“Your father deserves Azkaban too,” Harry scorned.

“No he doesn’t! Nobody deserves Azkaban! My father was only in there for a few months and when he came back I didn’t recognize him at all, I still don’t recognize him! Can you imagine what would happen to anyone who spent any longer there? Oh wait, you don’t have to, do you? Bellatrix came out and showed you what happens, and your own precious Godfather-”

“Don’t you dare compare Sirius to that - that monster-”

“Your Godfather may have loved you but he was a monster too, that’s what Azkaban does, it turns people into monsters-”

Lightning crashed above them. Harry grabbed Draco by the throat and lifted him out of his seat so fast that Draco didn’t see him even get up. “You filthy Death Eater,” Harry growled, “What do you know about love?”

“Boys, please,” Narcissa called from the open door, her hands clasped before her as though she were a governess scolding two naughty schoolchildren, not two grown men, one who had felled the Dark Lord just a month ago.

Harry dropped Draco down in his chair and stalked back to his without a word. When Draco caught his breath again, his mother had already left. Harry left after a while too, leaving Draco alone in the armchair, somehow still paralyzed there, wondering over and over again if he had ruined everything, rendered everything unsalvageable like he always did.

***

Harry was back the next day with Aunt Andromeda and baby Teddy.

“I apologize for acting out in violence,” he grumbled to Draco, his concession obviously practiced and prepared for him by Aunt Andromeda.

“I apologize for speaking indiscriminately,” Draco parried politely. And then he shoved a plate of tea and biscuits to Harry and told him to bring them into the living room where the others were conversing.

When Harry came back they lugged the television set that Harry had brought over to the attic and plugged it in. Since the cottage didn’t have cable or telly-phone or whatever Muggle-communication-y things Harry rambled on about for a good few minutes, Harry had brought over a Nintendo 64 which he described as “like fighting but only on TV so it’s safe, and you move the people around with these controllers” which made no sense at all, so Harry tried explaining again, except this time he said “imagine if you were watching a Quidditch game, but you were sitting in the stands and you could control the people around with your wand, the wand’s like the controller, but everything is 2D-”, which only further confused Draco so he just gave up and said he got it when he really didn’t. Once Harry guided Draco’s fingers to the right grip on the controllers though, Draco got it pretty instantly. Beat up Harry’s character before Harry’s character could beat him up. Easy enough. Harry had always been clearer with his actions than his words.

They played Super Smash Bros until lunchtime, which they took outside on the picnic table under the Montgomery cypress with Narcissa, Andromeda, and baby Teddy. Andromeda had prepared plates of sandwiches and potato salad, which Draco helped himself to as he ate sitting across from Harry, who had Teddy in his lap. “Pa pa,” Teddy babbled to Harry, who blushed and fed him an apple wedge.

Draco laid his head in his arms on the table and closed his eyes. When he woke, Harry was still sitting across from him with Teddy in his lap playing with multicolored blocks on the table.

“They went inside. I thought I’d give them a break with Teddy,” Harry explained when Draco sat up and looked around. It was still late afternoon; if Draco had to guess he was only out for an hour or so.

“Sorry, I didn’t sleep well last night,” Draco mumbled, rubbing the crust out of his eyes.

“That’s alright,” Harry said. He wet his lip. And then he said, “I’m never going to forgive your Aunt Bellatrix. Even if she used to be kind and Azkaban changed her or whatever, or even if she was, like a - a vegan nun Unicorn breeder adopter of a million abandoned crups or whatever - I’ll never forgive her for making Teddy an orphan.”

Draco dug his nails in on the edge of the table. “Me neither. Teddy is my family too,” Draco said quietly, studying his fingernails intently. If Aunt Bella hadn’t been so estranged with the Dark Lord, then maybe his father wouldn’t have fallen in so deep with the Death Eaters. Maybe he would’ve just stopped at condescension. Which would’ve still made him a bigoted asshole, but at least he would still be here, and if he was still here, maybe they could change, as a family, to be better.

Teddy looked back at him with those big brown eyes and bright teal hair and gurgled.

Draco said, “Sometimes I wish I had a time-turner. But then if I did, I’m not even sure what I would even change. Look at this table. Rodolphus Lestrange crafted it the Muggle way with his own two hands. And then he went off and became a recreational Muggle murderer. When did it all go wrong? What do I have to change to get it right?”

“You could’ve done a lot. You could’ve joined us. We would’ve protected you.”

Draco desperately tempered his own anger. He couldn’t expect Harry to just understand. They were too different. He had to explain. “I could’ve saved myself, maybe. But then my parents would be dead.”

“They could’ve escaped too. It would’ve been the right thing to do. Even if you died, at least you would’ve died doing the right thing.”

“You’re such a Gryffindor,” Draco couldn’t help but scoff. He would do anything to not die.

Harry didn’t rise to the taunt. “I’m just saying. But maybe I’m being unreasonable. If your mother hadn’t been on the wrong side at the end then Voldemort would have won.”

“I’m sure you would’ve found a way,” Draco mumbled, but he accepted Harry’s concession. He leaned over and scruffed Teddy’s baby soft hair. Teddy threw a block at him and laughed.

“Do you want to hold him?” Harry asked.

Draco recoiled. But he did, actually. He desperately wanted to know this side of his mother’s family. The good side. So he reached out his arms and gathered Teddy tenderly against his chest. When he looked up Harry rewarded him with a soft, unexpected smile.

“We’ll be back tomorrow, yeah?” Harry said as they headed out for the night, “Last court appointment before the trial.”

“Don’t worry Cissy, I know it will turn out alright,” Aunt Andromeda said, leaning in close to her sister and taking her by the arms. She turned to Draco and squeezed his shoulders before walking to Harry’s car.

“I take it that she’s forgiven you then?” Draco said later in the kitchen to his mother. 

“It’s not that simple, Draco darling,” Narcissa replied. She was writing in her diary again, and lifted her quill so that the feathers brushed the underside of her lip. “Although I suppose her love for her family has always been uncomplicated, even if the circumstances have never been. We’ve made some unfortunate choices, Draco, and I don’t think I’ve ever apologized for limiting your choices to what they were.”

Draco reddened, his throat chalking up. She was his mother, and anything she did, he could forgive. But Draco’s hands still shook. He wished she had left things unsaid.

“I don’t resent you most days,” he said eventually, trying for a smile.

His mother laughed. “Your Aunt Andromeda said the same.” 

***

They were sitting in the attic playing Nintendo 64 again when Harry brought up Hogwarts.

“There’s still a lot of rebuilding to do, so they’re asking for as many volunteers as they can get to get the castle in shape before the start of the school year.” Harry drank from a can of Coke he’d brought as they waited for the match to finish loading. “So I’m headed to Hogwarts after your trial tomorrow.”

Draco’s fingers stalled over the analog control. His Yoshi was instantly launched into the air with one swing of Ness’s bat. He quickly mashed A, trying to get back on the platform.

“Why are you telling me this?” Draco asked after the match ended. 

Harry shrugged. “Thought you’d be interested in joining.”

“I’d have to wait for the results of my trial,” Draco said slowly, going for the easy answer.

“Aw c’mon, you know you’re getting pardoned. They’re just doing it so they get it on the record, so nobody’ll try to pin you with an unfair trial five years down the line.”

“I don’t know, actually,” Draco said icily. He selected a stage and started the match. They played in silence; Draco lost again, distracted.

Harry put down his controller. “Draco. Look at me. You don’t really think they’ll actually convict you.”

Draco reached for a bag of crisps. “I mean, I wouldn’t know til tomorrow. Nobody knows. That’s the purpose of a trial,” Draco pointed out testily.

“Yeah, okay,” Harry said, sounding annoyed too now. “Humor me and assume that you’re gonna get off. Then won’t you come to Hogwarts?”

“I can’t. They wouldn’t want me,” Draco said. He bit his lip. He thought of Harry sitting in the Great Hall surrounded by all his friends and couldn’t see him being the same Harry who’d spend days with Draco eating crisps and taking photos. No, Draco knew that once Harry was back at Hogwarts he would return to his old ways.

“You’re wanted. Didn’t you get McGonagall’s Hogwarts letter?”

Draco shoved his hands in a bag of crisps, feeling the now familiar salt and grease coating his fingers. He lifted them to his mouth and licked them. “I didn’t open it,” he confessed after a while. “I’m not planning on returning to Hogwarts.”

“No,” Harry said.

“What?”

“No, you’re going to return,” Harry demanded impetuously.

Draco gaped. “You can’t expect me to return just because you want me to, Potter.”

“Don’t start with that again-” Harry said, his hackles rising with his voice.

“Tell me, then, Harry,” Draco spat out his name with an old, familiar venom, “How would you imagine my time at Hogwarts going? Long days at the library, ostracized by even my own housemates? Merlin - I can’t even imagine looking into the eyes of half of them, having sent half of their fathers to Azkaban. Can you imagine the vitriol with which they’d loathe me?”

“So you regret testifying then,” Harry accused, his jaw clenched, “That’s awfully cowardly of you, isn’t it?”

“Merlin, no, I don’t regret testifying the slightest. Not everything is as black and white as you choose to see it, Harry Potter. Not everything is divided up neatly into good and bad. I’m not trying to protect anyone from the actions of their families. But just because their fathers did terrible things doesn’t make it any harder to lose a father, okay? So won’t you just allow me the guilt of knowing that I inflicted that sorrow on them, a sorrow I know most intimately myself, and understand why I’ve little want of returning to Hogwarts?”

Draco was breathing heavily now. Potter had at some point crawled over and reached out for his arm. “Draco,” he said, “I’m sorry. I thought you meant” - he bit his lip - “I feel like I’m always mixing up what you say with the worst intentions. All I wanted to say was that I want you to come back to Hogwarts with me. I want you there. But I totally get if that’s not enough. Now that I’m saying it out loud it sounds awfully selfish of me.”

“You can always come back to the cottage,” Draco mumbled to the floorboards.

“Maybe,” Harry said. He sat back and pulled his legs to his chest. “But will you even be here? What do you even plan on doing after summer if not Hogwarts?”

“I haven’t thought that far,” Draco confessed, “I’ve been in a sort of limbo.” An admittedly happy limbo since Harry started coming to the cottage. But all of that was ending soon - tomorrow, in fact. He had to start thinking about moving on. His mind reeled; he wasn’t ready to face the future yet. “I suppose all this’d be a lot simpler if they’d just go ahead and sentence me to Azkaban already,” he tried joking, but realized uncomfortably how much of it rang true to him. Azkaban would be easier than trying to make a place for himself out there, with no NEWTs, a criminal record, and the reproach of the entire wizarding world.

“Don’t say that,” Harry said angrily. Draco belatedly realized that Harry was angry for him, not at him, for maybe the first time in their lives.

Harry continued, “I don’t know why you find it so hard to believe that people will forgive you. Everyone’s so eager nowadays to forgive and forget and move on. Justin Finch-Fletchley practically wrote a book on it. You haven’t even killed anyone. People’ll easily forget that you even existed.”

Draco laughed at that. Easy to forget - that was the first time he’d been told that being entirely unremarkable was something to be desired. “As long as I keep my left sleeve down,” he said lightly.

Harry grimaced for a second before teasing, “Nobody’d suspect a thing. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in a short sleeve tee at school.”

“Oh sod off,” Draco drawled.

“So have I convinced you?” Harry asked.

“There’s no use in convincing me, my mind’s made up,” Draco excused brusquely. He picked up his controller again. “Now can we start playing again so I can trounce you before you leave to fulfill your duties as the Saviour of the Wizarding World?”

“I’m going to wallop you for that,” Harry growled, lunging for his controller and turning his attention back to the television screen.

***

The trial came and went exactly as Harry had predicted. Harry gave a rousing testimonial to the valor his mother displayed that night in the Forbidden Forest when she had lied to Voldemort that had Narcissa’s elegant profile splashed over the front page of the Prophet with the headline “The Mother Who Dared to Lie to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named!”. Harry also gave an equally impassioned but nonetheless thoroughly less impressive testimonial toward Draco’s incompetence as a Death Eater (“Doesn’t have the stomach to kill anything, really. Has a hard time even chopping up potions ingredients.”). So Draco and Narcissa Malfoy had descended from the steps of the Wizegamont acquitted of all charges. 

“Where do you keep all your clippings?” Draco asked a week later, holding up a neatly cut photo of his mother from the Prophet this morning.

His mother Accio’d it from his hands from where she stood behind the kitchen counter, and tucked it away neatly in her robe. She picked up a knife and spread blueberry jam on perfectly toasted toast. Then she said, “What’s this nonsense I hear from Andromeda about your absence from Hogwarts this autumn?”

Draco choked on his tea. “Mother,” he started, uncomfortably acknowledging that Harry talked to Draco’s aunt about Draco, “I didn’t think it would be wise. I’d be - “ he trailed off, not wanting to admit out loud that he was afraid of being lonely.

“Well, the choice is yours, darling,” his mother said, “But I must insist on seeing your father.”

“Mother, please. I’m not ready. We’d just been acquitted. Can’t you let me catch a break?” Draco said, and took his toast up to his room to eat at his desk instead.

On his desk someone had arranged his wand box, his Hogwarts letter, another letter, and a can of soda. He approached his desk with trepidation, his hands trembling as he uncovered the foreign letter.

The letter was from Harry. He wrote of Hogwarts and how Peeves threw potatoes at Harry every day but he couldn’t even be bothered to care anymore, he was just so happy to be home again. He wrote of the new eight year dorms they were putting up just beyond Hagrid’s hut, and of a wild Occamy he found on one of his walks through the Forbidden Forest. Every line brimmed with a pure lighthearted sort of elation that was so infectious that Draco wasn’t even annoyed when Harry ended his correspondence with the expected plea for Draco to join him at Hogwarts.

Harry had attached two moving photos. In the first one, Draco’s back is hunched toward the television, his hands gripping the controller tightly, unaware of Harry smiling brightly behind him, holding the camera an arm’s length away so that his enormous head could make it in the photo too. The second photo was of the wild Occamy spreading its wings out so fierce and magical that Draco’s stomach lurched, queasy.

Draco laid his hands on his wand box, unmoving. His breath quickened, his palms slicked with sweat. And then he slid his hands off the box, his head falling in between them on the table. He wasn’t ready yet.

***

Draco passed the next week in the safety of the attic tinkering with another camera he’d found. It was another model of the Polaroid, and he held it in his hands like a second chance. He wasn’t going to screw up and taint it with magic this time.

On a Tuesday morning, Draco opened the door to find Harry Potter standing on the other side.

“I’m here to take your mother to St. Mungo’s,” Harry explained.

Draco stood there perfectly still.

“You’re welcome to join us,” his mother said from behind him.

Draco wasn’t going to allow Harry Potter of all people accompany his mother to visit his own sodding father. So they drove to St. Mungo’s together, and checked in together, and were all about to walk into Lucius’s room together when Draco said, “I can’t do it. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Mother. I’ll wait for you outside.”

He sped down the hall. Harry followed him out and sat with him in the waiting room quietly until Draco’s heart rate calmed down. And then he continued to not speak, but tilted his head and put his hand over Draco’s in a way that was both comforting but also expecting an explanation.

But then Neville Longbottom entered the waiting room, and saved Draco from having to say anything. Harry let go of Draco’s hand. 

“Harry! What’re you doing here? I haven’t heard from you all summer,” Neville called out, rushing to Harry with a bright smile. 

Neville looked more less the same as he did when Draco last saw him, but at the same time he looked entirely reborn. It took Draco another moment to realize what he was seeing was the shine of a newfound confidence. Draco stared up at Neville with abandon; Neville was clearly trying to pretend Draco wasn’t there, so Draco could look as much as he pleased.

“I’m here to accompany Draco and Narcissa to visit Lucius,” Harry said evenly, very matter of fact, as though that would be a perfectly normal thing for him to do on Tuesdays.

Neville finally did look at Draco then. Draco caught a faceful of disgust before he could rip his gaze down to the white tiled floor.

“I’m sorry,” Draco blurted out even though he couldn’t actually pinpoint why he was sorry, and why he felt compelled to express it currently. If anything he was sorry for the name calling, and the Remembrall incident in first year, but that didn’t need immediate expressing in a hospital waiting room. Perhaps what he was sorry about was being here at all, in Neville’s line of attention, taking up space in Neville’s precious war-hero thoughts.

“Oh, I suppose it’s alright today. I can’t envy anyone who has an appointment at the Janus Thickey Ward,” Neville grumbled when he couldn’t put up with Harry’s increasingly pointed looks anymore.

Draco opened his mouth to ask about Neville’s parents, and then quickly closed it when it became obvious to him that whatever he said would be the wrong thing to say.

“Have something to say, Malfoy? Or do you enjoy looking like a gaping fish,” Neville snarked.

Draco looked away.

“Neville’s coming back to Hogwarts next week to help with reconstruction,” Harry said.

Neville turned back to Harry, grinning sheepishly. “I would be there now but I’ve a fair number of affairs to help Gran settle before she’ll let me go. Tell me, how’s it going?”

“It’s coming along. Say, Nev, wouldn’t it be nice to have Draco back at Hogwarts next year?”

“Err-, Harry?” Neville hesitated.

“I mean, we’re rebuilding the Slytherin dorms and all, it would be a shame for them to not be used.”

“Oh, I suppose,” Neville said. “Look Harry, I’ve got to go, but it was great running into you. I’m sure I’ll be seeing you plenty starting next week!”

After he left, Harry turned to Draco and pulled his hands in his again. “I’m really sorry about Neville. Hermione and a bunch of others in the DA are with me on this though. It’s no good if people like you’re treated as badly as Muggleborns were before the war. It’s no good if we just swap targets, you know? So, what’d you say? Won’t you come back?”

Draco took two calming breaths. He pulled his hands out from Harry’s where they’d gone cold and clammy, and said softly, “I’m not your charity case, Harry.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Harry grumbled, but he made no moves to explain what he meant, except to send an owl a week later, begging Draco to at least read his Hogwarts letter.

***

In the end, it was Professor McGonagall who convinced Draco to come back to Hogwarts.

She wrote, “You’ve a talent in Charms and Transfigurations that I would hate to see squandered.”

And then she wrote, “I understand your fear of magic. Magic, uncontrolled, can be a dangerous source of energy. And magic, controlled, can still destroy. But magic can also heal, enhance, grow. To judge magic only on its worst qualities would be to discredit its greatest capability, which is its ability to transform. Magic itself cannot be light or dark in the same way wizards cannot be divided easily down the line between good or evil. And you, Mr. Malfoy, are a magical being. To deny magic would be to deny yourself, and your own will to change.”

Draco put his Hogwarts letter back in the envelope, and opened his wand box.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I hope to have the next chapter up by end of next week.


End file.
